Raymond Pellegrin Movies

Showing no signs of slowing down in his 70th year, Sacha Guitry served as director and writer of the lavish historical epic Napoleon, and also costarred as Talleyrand. It is now hard to assess the quality of the film, since most American prints are severely edited, and the color photography appallingly washed out. Reviewers in 1955 admired the effort that went into this $1,800,000 production, but complained that the viewer left the film with no deeper understanding of Napoleon Bonaparte than the viewer had had when coming in. Daniel Gelin poses impressively as the young Bonaparte, registering emotion only when things go wrong in his conquest of Europe, while Raymond Pellegrin is somewhat better as the older, more jaded Napoleon (the transition between the two actors is handled in a near-comic fashion). The Revolution is reduced to a few fleeting scenes, while the rest of the film is devoted to political infighting and betrayal. The huge supporting cast includes Michele Morgan as Josephine and Lana Marconi and Dany Robin, respectively, as Napoleon's mistresses Waleska and Desiree. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this romance, a jilted lawyer joins the French Foreign Legion to help him forget his faithless love. While in the desert he espies a village beauty who is the exact double of his true-love. It turns out that she is an amnesiac. With her, the attorney tries to re-spark his old relationship. Trouble ensues when his real ex-love shows up and makes her look-a-like hit the road. The lawyer ends up going back to the Legion to escape it all. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

La Rage au Corps (Tempest in the Flesh) stars Francoise Arnoul as Clara, a woman with quite a past and a questionable future. Employed as a lunchroom worker by a Parisian construction company, Clara is rescued from a potentially fatal on-the-job accident by a handsome laborer. She expresses her gratitude sexually, and soon the rest of the workers are consumed by lust and jealousy. A psychiatrist determines that Clara is a nymphomaniac, who can be "cured" only by truly falling in love. Eventually this happens, but not before several torrid affairs (many of which proved too torrid for the American censors). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

La Romana (Women of Rome) is a worthwhile early starring vehicle for Gina Lollobrigida. "La Lollo" plays a young woman who is strong-armed into a modelling career by her ambitious mother. Before long, she discovers that there's a lot more money to be had if she sells her body rather than merely putting it on display. Of the many men in her life, Lollobrigida truly loves only one, but doesn't realize this until it's too late. American prints of La Romana were heavily trimmed to avoid the steamier passages, but Lollobrigida's star quality comes through loud and clear. The film was adapted by director Luigi Zampa from a novel by Alberto Moravia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally titled Nous Sommes Tout des Assassins, We Are All Murderers was directed by Andre Cayette, a former lawyer who detested France's execution system. Charles Spaak's screenplay makes no attempt to launder the four principal characters (Marcel Mouloudji, Raymond Pellegrin, Antoinine Balpetre, Julien Verdeir): never mind the motivations, these are all hardened murderers. Still, the film condemns the sadistic ritual through which these four men are brought to the guillotine. In France, the policy is to never tell the condemned man when the execution will occur--and then to show up without warning and drag the victim kicking and screaming to his doom, without any opportunity to make peace with himself or his Maker. By the end of this harrowing film, the audience feels as dehumanized as the four "protagonists." We are All Murderers was roundly roasted by the French law enforcement establishment, but it won a special jury prize at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

French novelist-turned-film director Marcel Pagnol made this black and white feature in 1953, He later wrote a novel based on his original script, which in turn was the source material for two much better known films made by director Claude Berri in 1986 - - Jean de Florette and Berri's own version of Manon des sources. Released uncut for the first time in 1988, Pagnol' s feature has a hefty running time of over four and a half hours. The story concerns the efforts of the beautiful shepherdess Manon Cadoret (played by the director's wife Jacqueline Pagnol) to avenge the death of her father Jean de Florette. The chief culprit in that death is a hapless peasant (played by veteran Marseilles comic Rellys), who, sadly, is desperately in love with Manon. Manon's revenge involves cutting off the town's water supply, drawing the wrath of the villagers. Her only ally is the town's somewhat haughty schoolteacher (Raymond Pellegrin), who she eventually marries. The action of this film corresponds roughly to Berri's version of Manon des sources. His Jean de Florette focused on events surrounding the father's death, which is here covered mostly in dialogue. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Once the French film industry was able to make WWII epics, it did so with a vengeance. Jericho is the true story of the bombing of the Nazi-held prison at Amiens. It is argued that, while the RAF took an enormous public-relations risk in the bombing, the end result was largely salutary, resulting in freedom for 50 French hostages. The dramatic portions of the film share space with newsreel footage of the actual attack. One of the better films of its kind, Jericho failed to make a dent in the U.S. market, which at the time was inundated with war pictures. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide